Now that Colombia’s e-invoicing pilot program has concluded, the country’s tax administration (DIAN) is evaluating lessons learned and next steps prior to unveiling its official e-invoicing legislation. Recently, Invoiceware by Sovos was invited to attend a meeting with the DIAN to discuss its plans going forward. Our primary takeaway from the meeting? Nothing is certain yet.

What we do know is that while there is no published date confirming when the first wave of taxpayers will be mandated to comply with e-invoicing in Colombia, the DIAN expects all companies to be compliant by 2019. Waves of mandates will begin before that date – likely with the first rollout in Q1 of 2018. These rollouts will still be based on the DIAN’s previously discussed criteria – a company’s transaction volume, revenue, asset volume, VAT refunds and industry.

During our meeting, the DIAN confirmed that there will be significant changes to the e-invoicing process used in the initial pilot program, moving from an asynchronous to synchronous model. The asynchronous model, with batch processing and delayed approvals, proved too cumbersome for companies with massive amounts of transactions. Instead, the proposed synchronous model will provide real-time approval or rejection to streamline the process and keep businesses moving without delay. The DIAN is currently evaluating partners that will validate the proposed schema – which is expected to be similar to Mexico’s e-invoicing program.

As the DIAN finalizes its plans, companies should be evaluating their current processes and technologies to understand their capabilities so that they are proactively prepared for the DIAN’s finalized schema. Companies with operations in Mexico and Chile, in particular, should review their current e-invoicing process in those countries - since we anticipate Colombia’s model to be most similar to these two Latin American e-invoicing models.

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Invoiceware International, the leader in Latin America electronic invoicing, provides solutions and services that reduce the risk and cost of maintaining compliance across the region for the world’s largest companies including The Coca-Cola Company, Intermec, Kellogg, DuPont, and Siemens.